Dinosaur Drama

Pontianac used to be a vast expanse of forest. It wasn't until seventeen seventy one that the contemporary Indonesian leader or Sultan, led a group of explorers to the area. He instructed them to start chopping down trees so that they would have a place to build his palace. And the Sultan, well, he didn't exactly believe in the eight hour workday. He made his employees work around the clock. The men chop trees at all hours of the night, making their way through the dense forest by the light

of the moon. And then one night, when the moon was full, they heard something strange. It sounded like a baby crying, but it was so quiet that they couldn't be sure. A sour, putrid scent wafted on the breeze. Suddenly they heard a woman laughing, and then they saw a figure clad in a long white dress darting between the trees. They knew exactly what it was too. The Kuntilanak one of the most famous and fearsome creatures in Indonesian folklore. The Kuntilanak is said to have pale skin,

black hair, and blood red eyes. Her fingernails are as long and sharp as knives, her canine teeth looked like fangs of a lion. Now, depending on the version of the myth, the Kuntilanach either died in childbirth or suffered a miscarriage. The loss transformed her into a vengeful, vampiric spirit known to hunt and eat men, and as her eerie laughter reverberated through the forest, the men ran to the Sultan and told him that there was a ghost

in the woods. Now, I don't know about you, but if I was being hunted by a bloodthirsty spirit, I'd get a one way ticket out of town, but not the Sultan. He was determined to build his palace, so he took two anti ghost measures. First, he fired a few canons to scare the Kuntilanak away. Second, in case she ever came back, he named the settlement after her in the hopes of appeasing her anger, and that's where

Pontianac came from. It's another name for the spirit. Whether or not the Sultan's methods worked is still up for debate. Some people think that Kuntilanak is just a story, but others believe the vampire spirit continues to haunt the city. Either way, the legend is an important part of local culture. A festival is held each year to commemorate the end of Ramadan and also to set off cannons then make

sure the Kuntilanaks far away. Now, while most people would like the malevolent spirit to keep her distance, one man suggested that they embrace her. In twenty seventeen, the head of the city's tourism agency pitched an idea for how to bring more visitors to the area. Why not build a statue of the Kuntilanak right outside the local recreation center. Oh, and to make things even better, how about the terrifying,

bloodthirsty ghost be three hundred feet tall. As you might imagine, people were not enthused about the prospect of seeing their nightmares brought to life.

protest was even happening. The city's head of tourism was known to have a sense of humor. It turned out the media had taken his joke about building a three hundred foot tall ghost statue and spun it into a story that ignited national outrage. The following month, the mayor of Pontianac issued a statement to put people's minds at ease. There would be no statue of Kuntilanak gracing their city. As for her spirit, though, well, that was something he

couldn't guarantee. When you hear the word dinosaur, an image of a t rex probably springs to mind. In this post Jurassic Park era, where kids grow up playing with miniature versions of prehistoric beasts. Dinosaurs are well known, but if you lived in eighteen forty and someone said dinosaur, you would have absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

The word didn't even exist yet. Although the first dinosaur bone was discovered in the seventeenth century, it wasn't until eighteen forty two that English biologist Richard Owen coined the term dinosauria, which means terrible lizard. Owen was a leading paleontologist during his time, and he aimed to educate the public about these so called terrible lizards. That's why in eighteen fifty one, Owen teamed up with famous sculptor and natural history artist Benjamin Hawkins. The pair hatched a plan

to bring lifelike dinosaurs to London. Using Owen's scientific background and hawkins artistic skill, the men created dozens of life sized dino sculptures, which were put on display at Crystal Palace Park in South London on the day the dinosaurs were unveiled in eighteen fifty four, Over forty thousand people crowded into the park to get a look. The display was so groundbreaking that one modern paleontologist credits Owen and

Hawkins with making dinosaur's mainstream. Fast forward to eighteen sixty eight. While Owen continued his work in England, Hawkins moved to America. He worked on a few different projects, like a series of lectures on paleontological art. During one of these talks, he mentioned how much he'd liked to create more dino sculptures like those in London. The next thing he knew, he was contracted by the Administrative Board of New York

City's Central Park. It seems that they had a project that was right up Hawkins Alley, an American equivalent of London's Crystal Palace Dinosaurs in true American fashion. The board wanted Central Parks display to be bigger and better. With a budget of seven point five million in modern day dollars, they dreamed of an exhibition chronicling life in North America, including sculptures of the dinosaurs that once lived in the region. Then it would be called the Paleozoic Museum. For Hawkins,

the commission was a dream come true. He spent the next two years hold up inside his studio. He made the Hadrosaurus, a long tailed bipedal dinosaur with a beak like nose, and the Dryptosaurus, which looked kind of like a mini t rex, but many is a relative term. The Dryptosaurus was still twenty five five feet long. When you consider the scale of these sculptures, you realize that Hawkins really had his work cut out for him, and

the process wasn't all smooth sailing. He got kicked out of his original studio and had to move all of his work into a temporary shed. Just imagine a middle aged guy trying to get his twenty five foot dinosaur statue into a U haul. And then there was the issue of Central Park's administrative board, which was full of drama. In eighteen seventy, a man named William Tweed was one of New York's state senators, but he was also the

de facto leader of New York City. One of the most corrupt politicians in state history, William Tweed was more commonly known as Boss Tweed. He ruled the city like a mafioso, and he placed his cronies in charge of Central Park administration cronies like Henry Hilton and Tweed and Hilton, well, they weren't fans of the Paleozoic Museum. Now. The exact

reasons why are still up for debate. Some people think that Tweed had a religious opposition to science, while others believe that he simply thought the project was too expensive. But perhaps the most interesting theory surrounds another museum entirely. You see, at the very same time that the Paleozoic Museum was in the works, so was the American Museum of Natural History, which is obviously still up and running today.

The Museum of Natural History was to be built right next to Central Park, and it also featured dinosaurs, which wouldn't necessarily be a problem. I mean, the more dinos the merrier, right, Well not if you were Henry Hilton. You see, Hilton had been a very vocal proponent of the Museum of Natural History, and he didn't want any

competition hindering its success. In December of eighteen seventy, Benjamin Hawkins, our dinos sculptor extraordinaire, received a letter from the Administrative Board letting him know that the entire project had been canceled. The note wasn't signed by Tweet or Hilton, but it was pretty clear what had happened. Hawkins, as you might imagine, was bitterly disappointed and as if things couldn't get worse.

One day in May the following year, he arrived at his workshop to find the floor littered with shards of plats, master and cement. Someone had broken into his shed and smashed every dinosaur to bits. As for the culprit, while there's no definitive proof, it is believed that Henry Hilton, who had a pension for bizarre and violent behavior, committed the assault himself. Soon after this final blow, Benjamin Hawkins returned to England, where he lived out his final years

as a recluse. But despite this sad ending, he still made his mark on New York City. According to one historian, the broken pieces of hawkins dino sculptures didn't remain in his warehouse. There's evidence that the material was ground down and used to pave parts of Central Park. And that's history for you, right. Even a sidewalk can tell you a curious tale. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour

of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.